Recently in Creativity Category

I found this TEDtalk, on the Happy Planet Index, by Nick Marks, to be deeply inspiring and brilliantly on target.  It is absolutely worth 17 minutes of your time!  He talks about creating the world we all want to live in without costing the earth in the process.  He claims our current policy and cultural focus on productivity and materialism is flawed for measuring the well-being of a country and its people.

Nick sites these 5 things we should reflect on in our daily lives enrich our personal happiness without costing the earth.  His entire talk is fantastic and has significant implications far beyond saving the earth but could inform our policy on economics, education, health, etc.

1. Connect
2. Be Active
3. Take Notice
4. Keep Learning
5. Give

Related articles:

• TED Global 2010: Nic Marks and Happiness that Doesn't Cost the Earth (worldchanging.com)
• nic marks: the happy planet index (toomanytribbles.blogspot.com)
• The Happy Planet Index: Nic Marks on TED.com (ted.com)
• Building a Greener World through Marketplace Economics and Radical Transparency (worldchanging.com)

I really like going to the El Segundo Antique Car show, held each year near the end of August.  It's free and is sponsored by the El Segundo Police Department, which I think is also cool.  I first went in 2008. I was out of town last year on business and missed it.  This year's show was a little different from the first one I attended.

When I first arrived the sky was overcast with the marine layer which makes for a very nice, diffuse lighting on the cars, perfect for photography.  The sun came out about half way through my visit.  Yikes.  Hot spots reflecting off the vehicles.

At any rate, I had a blast and am getting better and better at shooting cars (or, so I think, anyway—smile).

For this post I am including only a few shots of  hood ornaments, not grills, trunks, engines, or full cars.  To check out my entire collection of photos of automobiles, three albums, click on this link and then select the album(s) you wish to view.  Be sure to click the full screen button in order to view them in full screen, no matter how big your screen is.  (They do look awesome on the huge monitors!)

Click any image below to see a larger version.

About a month ago they measured. This week they installed.

The shutters completely change the feeling of the living room.  Tim likes.

Here you have about 4 hours of worked distilled into 1 minute and 20 seconds. Enjoy.

Yesterday I purchased a pair of Vibram FiveFingers, which are all the rage here in Los Angeles. As you can see, they fit like a glove, with each toe in a separate enclosure to enhance dexterity, stability, and balance.  They are made from kangaroo leather, which I didn't even know existed.  To check out these shoes, simply click on the image to the right.

Conrad the Kat was very jealous and then insisted on starring in an epic feature film in which he modeled his own stylish and fashionable footwear.  To watch Conrad the Kat's latest world debut, simply click on the image below.

Related articles:

• Vibram Fivefingers Review (socyberty.com)
• High Five to FiveFingers (ries.typepad.com)
• Barefoot Walking (fitfiend.com)

The fact that this can be done, in total, from storyboard (if they had chosen to) all the way to upload to YouTube, on a $299 device, the iPhone 4, that also happens to make phone calls, is astounding. When Apple makes this all possible on an iPhone Touch and the iPad, they will rock the education market! Be sure to watch it in full screen.

These pencil tip sculptures were all carved by hand by Dalton Ghetti.  Click on any thumbnail to open a slide show of all of the photos.

 

Source:  Damn Cool Pics

So nicely done. Be sure to check out Phil's post on the setup for this time lapse. He includes a 12 minute audio podcast about it as well at: Phil's Blog Post.  Oh, and watch this in full screen mode!

The level of detail is amazing.  Notice the earring on the ear on the top helmet.  Click the picture to view other equally amazing helmets.

Source:  LaughingSquid

An excellent photo essay entitled Crude Awakening, by Jane Fulton Alt.  Here are two samples...

I've already ordered one in each color!

Click photo to go to photo source.

This morning I got up really early (3:45AM) to shoot a time lapse of the Galaga Cove along the Palos Verdes Shoreline Preserve. Unfortunately, the area is not open for parking until 5AM; so, as tomorrow is the longest day of the year, I missed the transition from complete darkness to sunrise. It was already fairly light out when I arrived at  5AM. Probably just as well: the cliffs are a sheer, straight drop off, and I didn't want to plunge to my certain death by mis-stepping in the darkness. I placed the tripod just inches away from the edge!

The time lapse was with one shot ever 20 seconds for 7 hours (from 5am until 12pm) as the slider travelled 29 inches. (About half way through I switched to one shot every 5 seconds which is yielding a much smoother time lapse.) Regrettably I could put nothing in the foreground here for a parallax effect. The surf was very active for the summer time, and numerous suffers were enjoying the unusual wave action. Regrettably, the weather didn't do anything too dramatic during the time I was shooting, though the sunlight was varied and some heavy clouds considered coming in but didn't.

I shot this picture of this area several months ago when a thick fog enveloped the cove. I was hoping for something even more dramatic with the fog moving in or out but had no luck this morning.

But this is what the same area looked like today:

At any rate, I had some interesting conversations with a couple of surfers--guys about my age. I learned from one of them that, about 20 years ago, the city purchased the houses on the western side of the road along the Pacific Ocean. They allow the original owners to live in the houses until they die. Apparently the entire hillside is slowly sliding off into the Pacific Ocean. The land, otherwise, would easily be worth tens of millions.

One of the surfers was very into photography. He spoke of the many pictures he has taken over the years at this spot. He said it was very much like the south of France, another place he loves to shoot and surf.

One of the surfer dudes I talked with said the brown in the water indicates rip tides:  where the current is pulling the seashore sand back into the ocean.  I've always heard of these as a child growing up on the Gulf Coast (may it rest in peace) but had never been able to see them as you can in this picture.

As you will be able to see when I post the time lapse, soon, I promise, the weather was glorious beyond description. As a result, I got a sunburn on my face without ever realizing it. I don't think that paradise could be as perfect as this day.

Digital Photography School has an interesting article on creating one shot panos and even 360º videos.  The GoPano Optic, by Eyesee360.com, mounts onto many camera lens and comes with software, PhotoWarp, to unwarp the resulting "donut-like" image into the pano.  It's interesting.

My friend Mark, who travels as much as I do, was recently in the Jacksonville, Florida Airport and shot these photos with his iPhone.  This is very clever and creative design!

If we saw the guy's head through the far windows up in the ceiling, I would have foamed at the mouth!

Tim Likes!

"No, no, no!  On this planet you can only use 140 characters when you speak."
(Click the pic to see the larger version.)

In light of the fact that AT&T is ending their unlimited data plans for iPhone users, capping them for fees to punish the data hogs, I find this tweet by Josh Helfferich excellent.

"Let's just get AT&T to fix the oil spill, they've been capping everything else lately." -- Josh Helfferich via Twitter"

[Source: "Let's just get AT&T to fix the oil spill, they've been capping everything else lately." -- Josh Helfferich via T....]

Back on April 2nd, I wrote about the trip down to Halong Bay, Vietnam, when we stopped at a sewing factory and purchased a tapestry for the house.  Well, it is finally framed and now hanging on the wall in the living room.  As you can see, it's very large!  Though these pictures have a great deal of reflection because of the bright sun at the time of day I shot them, I'm posting them so you can get a sense of the tapestry.  The piece is actually double framed.   (Click on each photo to see the larger version.)

When you click on the two pictures below, you can see some of the detailed sewing work.  (You see the reflection on the flowers through the front window.)

Related articles:

• Vietnam: Day Three - Halong Bay (timtyson.us)

And I mean out of the city. Tom Lowe shares some astounding time lapse work from out in the desert. He also has a couple of breath-taking HD versions available for download at his site, Timescapes. Just awesome! You have to watch these full screen!

Predicting where to setup to catching the galaxy stars as they come by, the sunrise and set, the moon's motion and how it will change the lighting of the scene...  He's quite the artist!

Related articles:

• I Love Ross' Creativity Here (timtyson.us)

Everyone knows of my growing interest in time lapse.  Here's a new twist from Ross Ching:  shoot time lapses of LA's highways and take out all of the cars!  The amount of time Ross had to spend in post masking out the cars using Photoshop and FCP is probably less than I imagine but at the same time more than I can imagine!  He talks about it at his blog, here.

It looks like he also did some lovely work with color grading, and I suspect, but don't know for a fact, that the panning through some of the sequences was done in post and not with a slider or dolly at the shoot.  A a couple of weeks ago a photographer friend of  mine asked me if that would be possible.  From a practicality standpoint, I wasn't so sure just because of the amount of time involved with computer crunching.

Very, very creative work that ads a whole new dimension to the LA reality that is never without a hideous amount of traffic. Good music.  Clever and creative.  Tim likes!

The most brilliant storytelling ever on television. Ever!

Epic. Heart wrenching. Complex. Ever evolving. Captivating. Brilliantly crafted. Flash backs. Flash Forwards. Flash sideways. Convergence.

Ironically, I didn't watched it on TV until the final episode. Even then, I didn't see it live. I saw it on my iPod and my iPad as an iTunes purchase. Another first. Every episode.

I will miss the characters.

Brilliant!

Related articles:

• 'Lost' Finale Explained: Answering the Unanswered Questions (screenrant.com)
• Ending a Series Is Hard to Do (patspapers.com)

I really like my Canon 5DmkII DLSR.  I've grown a lot more comfortable with it and am continuously amazed at what it produces.  Nothing astounds me more than the HD video it shoots.

I'm not a person who watches TV.  I've never watched the TV series House.  But this year's season finale of House is notable because it is the first TV episode to be shot entirely using the Canon 5DmkII.  Take a peek at the teaser.  The image quality is stunning.

Related articles:

• House Season Finale Shot Entirely on a Canon 5D Mark II [Photography] (gizmodo.com)
• Watch House? Like gadgets? Tonight's episode was the one shot on a 5D mk II (crunchgear.com)
• Season finale of 'House' filmed with Canon DSLR (macworld.com)
• Canon 5D Mark II used to shoot entire House season finale, director says it's 'the future' (engadget.com)

I hadn't come across Sean Stiegemeier's work until I saw this astounding time lapse of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupting. Not only do you see stunning imagery from nature, but his use of the motorized dolly really brings this to life. And the still life of the old bullet riddled plane... Way awesome. Amazing work! No doubt this guy will have work start pouring in.

I hope he had one whale of a zoom! (He used a wide angle though. Brave man!)

For the best viewing experience, watch this with HD on!

Related articles:

• Time-Lapse Video of The Eyjafjallajökull Volcano (laughingsquid.com)
• A Haunting Time-Lapse Video of Eyjafjallajökull [Iceland] (gizmodo.com)
• The Incredible Eyjafjallajökull (joshspear.com)
• Stunning stop-motion video of Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland, in action (boingboing.net)
• The volcano.The video. (vostok.es)

Back in 2005 I posted about my desire to be able to design and create my own custom clothes over the Internet just as we can other products. And then I posted about a service that let you customize your own Keds. M&Ms can even be customized. But I want to customize my clothes rather than being restricted by the brand labels and insane "fashion designers."  I want the Tim Fashion.

The day has finally arrived. Check out Blank Label! Awesome. I'm going to have to order something just because I can!! (After I lose some more weight!)

I saw these glasses for sale online a few weeks back and couldn't resist them.  This morning, when the sunlight struck my glass of glowing Diet Orange Crush, the breakfast of champions, I grabbed my iPhone and shot this picture just before the sunlight went to visit someplace else.

Picture from the online store:

Source:  ffffound who got it from dvdp

Click for a larger picture.

The entire article is worth reading.  The viciousness of corporate America at work...

Our future well being depends more on people like Steve Jobs who invent real products that can improve our lives, than it does on people like Jamie Dimon who invent financial products that do little other than threaten our economy."

[Source: Robert Reich (Apple Isn't the Problem. Wall Street's Big Banks are the Problem.).]

Comprised of over 6,000 still images, each shot every 20 seconds from the hotel room window overlooking the river below, this time lapse represents almost 2 days of the heat and hazy humidity of Bangkok.  I used my old Canon 30D.  The original project is 1080HD and is filled with interesting detail; but, to be useful for web deployment, this much smaller version is shared.

Perhaps because one of my high school music teachers is retiring at the end of this year (after many years of service) or because of what I saw at the beach yesterday, or maybe both, but this song from my high school music days in the Singers came back to me.

Red and yellow and pink and green
Purple and orange and blue
I can sing a rainbow,
sing a rainbow,
sing a rainbow too.

Listen with your eyes,
Listen with your ears,
and sing everything you see,
I can sing a rainbow,
sing a rainbow,
sing along with me.

Yesterday I was surprised to see that the lifeguard stations along the Pacific all have had their banisters painted one of five different colors.  I'm not sure if the remainder of each station will be painted the same color it currently is, the color of the banister, or a completely different color.  Time will tell.

Tim likes!

(To hear the song, click here.)

This time lapse, from yesterday, is better than my first because I used manual focus! :)

It's also more interesting because you can see the stars moving through the sky as well as the fog come rolling in off of the ocean during the night. You can even see the moving fog outside during the day! (Look closely. You can see it.) Because this is a time lapse, the fog appears to be moving very rapidly. The truth is, it was going down the street faster than you could comfortably walk!

The downside of the fog: during the day this caused variance in the brightness of the individual shots in the time lapse. I experimented with removing that with a filter that averaged exposure values over time. It worked amazingly well but dulled the fog's motion outside the window. So, I decided to leave it as shot.

You can view full screen by clicking on the full screen icon in the timeline. (It only appears, in the bottom right, when you mouse over the movie.)

Notes to myself on workflow:

• To resize the finished video file, export from FCP with QuickTime conversion out of FCP at the desired size using H.264
• THEN export that file out of MPEG Streamclip at 100% as an mp4 file for the web.
• Otherwise MPEG Streamclip takes insanely f-o-r-e-v-e-r!